Zombie at the Pool Party

I felt like a zombie at Jessica's pool party. Not the brain-eating kind—the kind that exists on autopilot, scrolling through feeds while life happens around you. My phone buzzed with notifications, but honestly? I was numb to it all.

"You good?" Marcus asked, flopping onto the lounge chair beside me. Sweat glistened on his forehead.

"Just people-watching," I said, which was half-true. I was definitely spying on Chloe—the girl I'd been crushing on since September—while pretending to check Instagram. Social camouflage at its finest.

He laughed. "You're overthinking it. Just talk to her."

Easy for him to say. My palms were already sweating just thinking about it. I wiped them on my shorts, probably for the third time in five minutes. Classic nervous move.

Then the sky opened up.

We'd all ignored the weather app's warnings—what's a little rain at a pool party? But this wasn't rain. Lightning cracked across the sky like something out of a movie, followed immediately by thunder that shook the deck. The pool lights flickered and died. Someone screamed playfully, but then the wind picked up, whipping everyone's towels and phones into chaos.

"Everyone inside!" Jessica's dad yelled.

We scrambled for the house, but Chloe—beautiful, graceful Chloe—slipped on the wet concrete. Her phone went flying straight toward the pool.

I didn't think. I just moved.

I caught her phone mid-air, but momentum sent both of us tumbling into the water. The shock of cold water knocked the breath out of me. When we surfaced, sputtering and laughing, the lightning painted the sky purple above us.

"You saved my phone," she said, shaking water from her hair. "You're literally my hero."

"I was already a zombie anyway," I joked. "Needed the recharge."

She laughed—a real laugh, not the polite kind she gave everyone else. And in that moment, feeling like a drowned rat with chlorine in my eyes, I didn't feel dead inside anymore.

Sometimes you need a storm to wake up.